


The Rebecca Lewis Guide to Accepting Your Vampire Brother (A.K.A. 10 Things Becky Learns About Simon)

by MissIdeophobia



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: BAMF Rebecca Lewis, Book Spoilers Adjacent?, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Female Homosexuality, M/M, Potential Book Spoilers, Vampire Simon Lewis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-16 19:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14817924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIdeophobia/pseuds/MissIdeophobia
Summary: Simon is living out a YA/Horror novel, complete with uncontrollable bloodlust and a guilt complex.  Becky is just finding where she fits in her vampire brother's life, now.  They figure it out together.





	1. Lesson One: Even as a Vampire, Simon Needs Hugs

Simon goes off the radar for weeks after he visits Rebecca in the hospital.  He sends her the odd text to tell her that he’s okay, maybe accompanied by an emoji or a weird GIF, but altogether she hears very little from her creature-of-the-night little brother.

It turns out that this was because Clary (who was somehow also involved in all of this stuff) had been caught in some kind of demonic explosion and sent to Edom (Hell-adjacent, or something), and they had to both get her back and disconnect her from some kind of weird mind-control thing her brother had on her…

…Because Clary had a brother and he was a total psychopath.  Oh, yes. 

Rebecca Lewis doesn’t know this yet, however, when Simon intercepts her outside of a coffee shop near home.  The weeks-long absence only makes the reality of Simon’s situation stand out more starkly when she sees him again.  The first thing she does is throw her arms around him, because Rebecca Lewis is not going to let one near-exsanguination come between her and her brother. 

Simon freezes up at the contact, inhales sharply and then stops breathing altogether.  When she finally lets him go, he puts a step of distance between them before exhaling lightly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hey, Becks,” he says in a strained voice. “How, uh…how are you?”

Instinctively, her eyes track to his mouth, where she knows there are (sometimes) really sharp fangs.  Rebecca’s fingers twitch, aching to reach up toward the scars on her neck.  It’s become a habit to reach for the injury, to press her fingers against the striated tissue whenever she’s uncomfortable or anxious. It had begun as idle scab-picking, but after she’d nearly ripped her stitches out while first returned home on bedrest, Rebecca had managed to divert the habit into less-harmful poking.

Vampire biting, as it turned out, was a much messier deal with more throat-ripping than the movies had made it seem.  Or, at least, it was like that with young vampires whose sisters got right up in their business when they were starving, under intense duress, and also begging them to stay back.

_Snap out of it, Becky, Simon really doesn’t need you being weird on top of everything else._

“I’m good,” she answers softly.  She means it, too.  Then, crossing her arms, she says, “I would have been better if you’d come and _visited_ me more than once, though, you little asshole.”

Simon winces guiltily.  Becky’s attempt at humour falls flat against the awkwardness that seems to have sprung between them with the moderately traumatic event of revealing of his vampiric nature. 

It’s been hard to think about anything else, really.  Rebecca has vacillated between berating herself for not knowing sooner, guilt so thick she almost chokes on it, and being incredibly pissed with Simon for not telling, not trusting her, sooner.  It’s mostly guilt, though, because she had known something was wrong with him.  Rebecca and their mom had both known something was seriously wrong with Simon.  Instead of confronting him properly, though, they had both just defaulted to the whole idea that if he had some kind of drug thing going on, he had to recognize the problem himself before anyone else could help him. 

Up against his sketchy behaviour, Rebecca had assigned Simon’s changes in appearance to his apparent drug problem.  The purplish bruising under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days, the unnatural paleness, the way the veins in his arms stood out more starkly than they ever had – to any normal person, those things just screamed substance abuse.  He had become so twitchy and secretive, disappearing for days and weeks and then showing up acting like he’d missed them, like he hadn’t wanted to go away.  It all screamed junkie, to them.  Rebecca and her mom had even gone as far as researching rehab facilities before the whole…thing that happened.

God, she’d been so naïve and stuck in her own narrative of what _must_ be wrong with Simon instead of what was _actually_ wrong with her brother.

In-the-know Becky can detect the changes in Simon that aren’t human at all, that can’t be given any normal explanation.  There’s the fact that he hasn’t actually paled _per se_ , but actually has a strange-but-subtle grey pallor.  There’s also the way that he shifts between that extreme twitchiness or preternatural stillness.  His twitchiness is a problem unto itself: simply too fast to be normal, it’s Simon’s natural awkwardness manifesting against his vampire speed into movements and ticks that are indisputably _super_ natural.

There’s also that whole thing where, when his mouth opens, her neck twinges at the sight of canines that are just this side of too sharp.  She knows that those canines can drop down to a frightening length, more akin to cat-like ripper teeth – a carnivorous predator’s teeth – than what a person should have.

Rebecca sighs. _Snap out of it, Becky._   “Simon, I’m seriously fine.  Invite me over to your apartment so that we can hang out…unless you want to hang out here.” She gestures toward the window of the coffee shop that they stand in front of.

She’s being super bossy, but Simon’s got his back up and he’s not going to engage without a little harsh prodding.  This suits her just fine, because Rebecca has had plenty of years of practice bugging him into submission.

“No, um, that’s fine. My place is good.” He’s rubbing the back of his neck, looking so anxious that he’s going to give Rebecca anxiety. “Jordan should be there, which is probably for the best.  I mean, I’ve eaten today, I promise, but-”

Rebecca closes the distance he’d put between them and grabs Simon by the shoulders.  Simon shuts up immediately, biting the inside of his cheek.  Simon goes from anxious to full-on deer-in-the-headlights, which is hilarious given that he is certainly not the prey here, out of anyone. It makes her want to laugh because Simon being scared of someone completely unthreatening is so very Simon. 

Releasing his shoulders, Becky makes grabby hands in his face before making him turn around back the way he’d come.   Simon lets her man-handle him easily.  Both of them know that he’s way, way stronger than a normal person could be and that if he didn’t want to move, he wouldn’t.  Weeks ago, when he’d grabbed her in his blood-frenzied state, it’d felt like being trapped in an iron vice.  She had struggled, then, but it had been a pointless effort.  His arms might as well have been steel coil, impossible to break through. 

Things had gotten hazy after that.  She’d relinquished herself to the beautiful floating feeling that apparently accompanied a vampire bite to make the one being bitten as compliant as possible.  She can confirm that she was made very compliant, unwilling and unable to do anything because struggling seemed so silly when the feeling was so wonderful.

Rebecca Lewis really can’t reconcile her doofus brother with the literal ultimate predator that he’s become.  She will never tell him this.  He’ll take it the absolute wrong way.

“Lead on, Stupid,” she says instead.

So, he does. 

The trip takes ages – although Simon doesn’t look winded _at all_ , even after they’ve climbed three floors of stairs to his unit (rude).  They fill the walk with inane conversation that's more than a little awkward and forced.  It's hard to jump back into normalcy when she's spent months convinced that there was something wrong with her brother, and trying to figure out how to do something about it without sending him running.

Simon prods her about school, so she tells him that she’s taking the semester off except for the one online course she’d had.  She doesn't mention that it's because she's supposed to be grieving and that their Mom actually is.  Simon tells her that he’s been trying to keep up with some accounting classes, but he’s thinking he’ll probably end up dropping out with everything that’s been going on in the Shadow World, these days.  Rebecca doesn’t ask for clarification on that but knows that she’ll probably have to eventually.

She tries to focus on what they talk about, but can’t help cataloguing all the differences in her brother now that she knows what he is.  It’s the first time she’s really had a chance to talk to him since finding out about the whole vampire thing.  She’s got a million burning questions that she can’t formulate sentences for, quite yet.

They both steer clear of the topic of their mom.  Rebecca isn’t going to open up that can of worms anywhere but in a private setting.  Maybe not even then, unless Simon asks. 

When they reach the door, Simon fumbles for house keys like the dork he’s always been and nearly drops them twice before letting them both inside.  Thinking of her brother as an ‘ultimate predator’ was probably giving him too much credit.  It was almost laughable.

She knows better, though.

The living space they step into is basically Simon’s ultimate nerd fantasy.  It’s all video games and rock n’ roll, and smack in the centre of it is Simon’s roommate – Jordan, apparently, who had been there the night Heidi attacked them, but Rebecca doesn't remember him in the slightest.

Jordan is tall and wiry and looks like that boy your mom tells you not to date in high school.  His long hair needs a good brushing, but it doesn’t look gross, it’s that unkempt surfer style from any Californian’s wet dream.  He introduces himself nervously (ooh, Aussie), eyes flickering to Simon, to her, and then down to her neck. 

It’s the scarring that he’s looking at.  Simon can see it, too.  He probably thought that she wouldn’t notice the way he kept staring at it on the way over until she’d finally brushed her hair over her shoulder to hide it.  Everyone has been staring – Rebecca can’t help but notice it, anymore.

“I’m Rebecca,” she says firmly, drawing Jordan’s attention back to her face.  She catches Simon shifting awkwardly in the corner of her eye.  She doesn’t want this to turn into a guilt trip visit, she just wants to get to know her brother, again.

Jordan guiltily meets her eyes.  Yeah, buddy, you’ve been caught. 

“Right,” he says.  There’s a long, uncomfortable silence before the other man clears his throat and gestures absently toward a closed door.  “I, uh, I’ll just be in my bedroom.”

Both Simon and Rebecca watch the other man make a break for it all while trying to look casual, and Rebecca is instantly reminded of how ridiculous boys are. 

Simon apparently can’t take the weird anymore.  “Do you want anything?” he asks.  “I mean, I don’t eat, but I think Jordan has some stuff.  Want me to check? I can check.”

Rebecca doesn’t get to answer, because Simon speeds to the kitchen faster than her eye can track.  He’s beside her one moment and in front of the fridge the next, trying to seem casual as he peruses what’s inside.

She allows herself to take a moment to be surprised, because as hard as she tries this stuff is all still kind of crazy.  Then, she huffs.  “Simon, I don’t need anything, it’s fine.”

Realizing that he’s just vampire-d in front of her, Simon goes ramrod straight. Carefully, tense hands shut the door before Simon’s whirling around to face her.  “Oh my _G-_ uh, sorry, that was weird.  That was weird, wasn’t it?”

Did he just stop himself from saying ‘Oh my God?’

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, almost too quietly for her to hear him.  He leans back against the kitchen counter.  “This is – it’s still new.  I mean, I’m usually _too_ human, but sometimes it’s just…” he trails off, brow creasing as he tries to find the words he’s looking for.

“Sometimes you just can’t help but act like a vampire because you are one?” she asks, trying to inject as much teasing as she can into the question.  She doesn’t want him to think that she’s afraid of him.  She’s a little afraid of vampires, of what _being_ a vampire will mean for Simon, but she isn’t afraid of _him_.

Simon bobs his head from side-to-side in a ‘so-so’ gesture.  “Yeah, I guess.  I forget to breathe because I don’t have to, or I get really tired during the daytime because I’m supposed to be nocturnal now-”

“-You were nocturnal before, Si, you literally slept until like 3 p.m. if you could-”

“-and I move too fast.  A lot.” He finishes, giving her the Little Brother LookTM that says that she’s being a dick, interrupting him like that.  He’s not wrong.

Rebecca tries to hide her grin and fails.  “ _Si-mon_ ,” she says, emphasizing each syllable in his name for the dramatic effect.  “I’m going to have questions.  Obviously. But right now, I really just want to know if you’re okay.  It’s been pretty much radio silence since you visited me in the hospital – so, can we start there?”

Simon takes a moment to process what she’s said.  Then, at a much more human pace, Simon returns to the living room area with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets.  He’s looking everywhere but directly at her, and she’s having none of that crap.

Rebecca drops onto the couch, patting the spot beside her.  “Sit,” she demands. 

He does.

When she shifts her body so that she’s facing him as much as possible in their side-by-side position on the couch, she notices that he immediately leans away from her and then forward, bracing his elbows on his knees with his head angled down. 

“You said you’re not hungry enough to eat me, what’s with the big personal space bubble?”

Simon blinks, like he hadn’t realized she was noticing, and then he makes an embarrassed face that probably would have included blushing, were he still ‘alive.’

“I just…you know,” he gestures at the space between them.  She doesn’t, really.  Know, that is.  Finally, Simon explains with a ground out, “Last time.”

Oh.  ‘Last time.’

“You mean when a crazy chick took a knife to my neck and had me get up in your face when you were literally starving, and I wouldn’t listen when you warned me to stay back?”

His head shoots up.  Clearly, he’s surprised by his sister’s own version of events that Simon’s most likely been torturing himself with for weeks.  He opens his mouth to say something – maybe to argue, maybe to ask what she means, but Rebecca stops him with a hand before he can get the words out.

“Listen, Si, I’m not here for either of us to act all guilty.  If Hailey-”

“-Heidi-”

“- _Whatever_ her name is hadn’t done what she did, _none_ of this would have happened.  She’s the one to blame, not you and not me. We clear?”

He listens, thankfully, as she speaks.  His expression is mostly unreadable, until suddenly his face crumples and he hangs his head back down almost so low as to be between his knees.  It’s something Si has always done when he’s trying really, really hard not to burst into tears.  Because manliness or something.

Rebecca scoots closer and lays a hand gently across his back.  It’s…it’s a lot like when she’d approached him weeks ago, and he’d attacked her.  This time, everyone knows better.  This time, the circumstances are so drastically different that she doesn’t really feel scared at all.

“Simon, I just want to be your big sister, again.”

He makes a soft little noise that’s suspiciously close to a sob.  She wonders which one of them is going to lose it first.

Carefully, so as to avoid spooking him, Rebecca leans forward and snakes her other arm around his front, clasping the two hands together just below his opposite shoulder.  She leans her cheek against his back, absently noting that he’s kind of cold to the touch, even through the fabric of his jacket.  Well, not _cold_ , but maybe more like there’s an absence of warmth from his body?

Simon’s fingers brush against her arm, feather-light and so, so unsure.  Without the barrier of clothing, she notes that, okay, he’s actually pretty cold to the touch.  Dare she say, corpse-like. But not…gross, or anything. It’ll just take some getting used to.

Becky starts sobbing pretty much immediately when he shows that responsiveness to her hug – well, it answers the question of who loses it first.  It’s not cute film crying, either.  It’s that gross full-body weeping that releases all the stress of these crazy past few weeks, of having to live with their mom thinking that Simon is dead, of having to cope with the fact that he had _actually died_ sometime this year and Rebecca hadn’t even known it.

She hadn’t realized how broken she’d been over everything until this moment, where she feels her heart starting to heal a little bit.

He lets her cry it out for a while.  Then, Simon gently extricates himself from her grasp, unclasping her hands so carefully, and turns toward her so that he can wrap her in his arms.  She needed this so badly – really, really badly.  It feels like Simon’s coming home, like she’s getting him back after spending months afraid that she was going to lose him forever to some terrible street drug.

Becky buries her face into the neck of his jacket, her forehead pressed against cool skin, and proceeds to snot all over his clothes.  He smells like the drugstore soap he’s been buying since Mom had started letting him buy things like that on his own.  It makes her smile into his shoulder despite the fact that she’s still crying, because this is her little brother and she loves him more than _anything_.

Simon slowly squeezes her to provide some comfort.  “Tell me if it’s too tight,” he mumbles, because he probably has to ask about things like this.  She thinks it must be awful to have to be that careful with everyone you touch, lest you accidentally break them because you’re _that_ strong.  She can’t imagine having to be so aware and attentive to her own strength _all_ the time. 

Wetness seeps through the shoulder of her blouse. Becky’s heart feels both full and broken at the same time when she realizes that Simon’s definitely crying, too.  It’s a healing kind of hurt.  She’d spent months thinking that she was losing her brother, somehow, and couldn’t stop it.  Then, she’d found out in the worst way that she _actually_ _had_ lost him, and worse, that she had been none the wiser.  Learning that he had died alone and scared in that terrible way he’d described back at the hospital – even if she got him back in the end – is a stark reminder of the mortality that’s been a festering open wound in her heart since Heidi attacked them.  It’s been years since she's been consumed with the thought of losing Simon.  When their dad had died, she'd gone a little nuts with the worrying about the loved ones she had left dying on her, too.  She wonders if she'll spiral back into that.

The thought pulls a question to the forefront of her mind.  It’s a really horrible question and she doesn’t want to ask it.  Still, she thinks that she kind of has to.

“Simon,” she says quietly, shifting so that her words aren’t muffled by his shoulder.  “Si, are you immortal, now?”

Simon goes completely tense, and that’s pretty much an answer unto itself.  His arms unwind from her and he pushes them apart.  They stare at each other, eyes both red-rimmed and faces covered in tear-tracks.  Rebecca wipes her nose with the sleeve of her shirt.

He swallows.  Takes a breath.  Then, in the most broken voice she's ever heard, Simon replies with a choked, “ _Yes.”_

Becky has read _a lot_ of YA.  She thinks that anyone with a brain would figure that real-life immortality would actually be terrible, no matter what literally every trashy vampire romance would lead tweens to believe.  Growing up, she’d wondered how characters didn’t go crazy when they lived one, two, three hundred years, stuck standstill in the constant stream of time.  Becky had never seriously considered the possibility; however she realizes now that this is the _absolute last_ thing that she ever wanted for Simon.

Simon wipes his eyes, but it’s kind of pointless because neither of them are apparently done crying.  “I won’t…I can’t age.  I’ll look like this forever.  Or until someone kills me, I guess.”

Rebecca’s hand fists in his jacket, hard enough to almost tear the material.  “ _Don’t_ ,” she hisses.  “Don’t say things like that, Simon, I swear to God. I’ll beat you up.”

He goes totally blank-faced, and Becky thinks for a split-second that she’s gone too far and he’s going to have a total breakdown.  Then, opposite to her expectations, Simon’s face splits into a big, watery smile.

“Becks,” he warbles, “I’m _really glad_ that you know.”

Rebecca laughs.  She’s really glad, too. 

She still punches him in the arm, though.


	2. Lesson 2: Vampirism Doesn't Change that Simon's a Dork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke pursues a new career. Simon is good at manual labour. Rebecca plunders for Judith Butler.

**Vampirism Doesn’t Change the Fact that Simon’s a Dork**

Two months after the so-dubbed “Cry-Fest” (her brother is both creative and overdramatic), Becky finds herself slowly becoming integrated into Simon’s new life.  They hang out when they can, falling into old habits of sassing and teasing each other at every available opportunity, and it’s good.  It feels great to have her brother back.  She’ll take him any way she can get him, she just wants Simon to _be there_.

On an unseasonably chilly Friday night, Rebecca winds up outside of a set of rowhouses at the behest of Simon’s text message from earlier that day.  As she freezes her ass off with no Simon in sight, she realizes that she might just have to kill him.

There’s a burst of wind that sends her hair flying into her face, and through her own mess of brown tangles, she sees her asshole of a little brother giving his best happy dork expression.  He’s become progressively more comfortable with just being his bad vampire self around her, which Rebecca is grateful for, because the guilt and constant weirdness was not fun.  She’ll take supernatural weird over emotional, awkward weird any day.

While she is grateful for this, she’s not grateful for the fact that he’s become a regular contributor to the never-ending battle she has to wage with her hair.

“What the _hell_ , Simon, I’ve been here for like half an hour,” she grouses, but there’s no real heat to it (probably because there’s no real heat _anywhere in sight_ ). 

He immediately looks apologetic.  “Sorry, I was helping Luke drive stuff over – and I, uh, I forgot how cold it is.”

Right.  He doesn’t feel temperature anymore.  Not really.

“Stop bragging,” she snipes.  The slow, trudging approach of winter makes her bitter and she’ll never apologize for it.  Rebecca Lewis has a pretty hateful relationship with the coldest season.  New York winters suck. 

“What are we up to, anyway?” she asks her brother.  “Your text message was drug-deal levels of sketch, Simon.”

He’d texted her when she’d just finished up brunch with Bubbe Helen.  Her phone had buzzed to life, revealing a message from “S”, as she had so disguised him in her phone to avoid awkward questions from prying eyes.  The message had read: _Come 2 Manhattan._ It was followed by a second text with an address and a smiley face.  The smiley face had not made the message less creepy _at all_.

Simon turns to the rowhouse and makes a ‘ta-da’ sort of gesture.  “This is Luke’s place.”

“You say that like it explains anything.”

Her brother gives her a put-out face, pauses, and then a brilliant (evil) smile lights up his features.  This, Becky knows, is not just any kind of big, sweet smile.  This is Simon’s ‘start-shit’ smile.  This is the smile that used to start weeks-long prank wars when they were kids.  This is the smile that preceded him putting gum in her hair when he was nine, and she had to get her hair cut boy-short just in time for the start of sixth grade.  The next night, she’d cut Simon’s curls ragged while he was sleeping, using a pair of kitchen scissors.

The best part is that she’s only gotten more vindictive with age.

Before she can demand that he not do whatever he’s about to do or threaten to throw holy water in his face, or something, Simon disappears.  She’s quite suddenly hauled up, bridal-style, into cold arms. The world vanishes into a blur until everything reforms into the dark foyer of, presumably the rowhouse they’d been standing in front of.  Vertigo roils her stomach for a hot minute, but thankfully she overcomes any urge to barf brought on by vampire speed.

When Simon lets her down onto shaking legs, she takes a long moment to gather herself.  Then, she turns very slowly so that Simon can see in her eyes that she’s going to kill him.  Then, she screeches out a battle cry and does the worst she can: she takes two hands and _completely fucks up his hair_.  Simon releases an impressively pitched, unmanly shriek and materializes a little ways down the hallway.  He immediately begins patting his hair back down into some semblance of style.  _Diva._

“Bad vampire!” Rebecca tells him, pointing an accusatory finger. 

Simon responds first with an eye-roll, and opens his mouth to say something.  Whatever it is, he doesn’t get the chance, because Luke appears in the doorway to the front room, hands on his hips and a decidedly unimpressed frown on his face.

“ _What_ is going on here?”

Simon throws both hands up as if to say ‘who, me?’ Luke shakes his head at her younger (jerk-face) brother before he turns his impressive disappointed-face to Rebecca.  Then, unable to keep it together, Luke’s expression breaks into a big smile and he holds his arms open for her.  She knew he hadn’t gone total grumpy adult since she last saw him.  Luke had always been the fun parental figure in hers and Simon’s lives.

“C’mere, Trouble,” Luke says.

Rebecca launches into his embrace, arms thrown around his neck.  He catches her like she weighs nothing – and knowing what she knows now, it’s unsurprising.  He runs hotter than a normal person, a strange opposite to Simon’s this-side of too cold. 

A wolf, she thinks.  A fiercely protective pack animal.  It suits him. 

She’s missed him more than she realized.  Luke’s presence had always been a constant.  Luke was joined at Jocelyn’s hip the way that Simon had been to Clary’s.  Luke had begun as the cool dad of Simon’s best friend.  He had evolved into a good friend of Elaine’s, over the years, offering to take Simon on family camping trips or to amusement parks.  It had only solidified his cool-factor.

More importantly, Luke had swept like a calm ocean into Simon’s life after Levi Lewis had died, taking up a father figure role to fill the hole his actual dad had left.  Rebecca is forever grateful to Luke, thinks that Luke and Jocelyn were probably a big reason why Simon got through losing his dad and why Elaine got help for her drinking.  Rebecca loves the Fray-Garroway family like they’re her own.  She always will.

“I’m really glad to see you,” Rebecca says as he lifts her up into the Ultimate Luke Bear Hug.  It’s like being a kid, again. Luke doesn’t push whatever boundaries he’s figured Becky must have, and gives a comforting squeeze before setting her gently back down onto her feet.

“You too, Becca.”

‘Becca.’ Luke had been the first person to call her that.  She’d always gotten ‘Becky’ from friends or ‘Becks’ from her mom and Simon. Luke had started the ‘Becca’ thing and Jocelyn had ended up with that habit, too. 

Man, she really hopes Luke is okay.  She knows how much he loved Jocelyn, even if they were never officially together (not that Rebecca would know, since they also hid entire double-lives from her with total ease).

 _Get out of your own head, Becky,_ she scolds herself.  She refocuses on the real world, to where Luke is still grinning at her, happy as a clam.

Luke’s beatific smile turns on Simon when the young man shuffles back into close proximity.  Too fast for him to react, Luke reaches out and ruffles Simon’s hair, eliciting a squawk of protest and some surly teen-boy swatting.

“If everyone could just leave my hair alone,” Simon grumbles, “that would be super cool.”

Rebecca makes a face at him.  “You brought this on yourself.”

Simon shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, shoulders rising up toward his ears as he slouches.  “When’s Clary getting here?” he asks.

“She’s on patrol with Jace and Izzy, she’ll be along when she can.”

Patrol.  Ninja-angel-demon-hunter patrol.

Having had that completely epic thought, Rebecca turns to her surroundings.  Behind Luke is an empty dining-slash-entertainment room, but its been emptied of furniture besides a couple of bare, dusty bookcases and tons of boxes, spilling over with books, that line the room. 

“Opening a bookstore?” she asks teasingly, leaning more into the room to get a better view of all that’s going on.  She’s never been to Luke’s own place before, he was always at Jocelyn and Clary’s apartment.  She has no idea if this “decorating” is par for the course.

Luke gives her a sly look.  “Sure am,” he says.

Wait.  What?

As Luke slings an arm around Simon’s shoulders, her brother tells her, “I told him we’d help with some sorting – he bought the stock for a local bookstore that went out of business.”

“What about the NYPD?” Becky asks, because Luke’s been a police officer – and later a detective – as long as she’s known him.  It’s hard to imagine him doing anything else.

Both of the men adopt sour expressions – Luke’s edging toward regret while Simon’s is full-on pissed.

“His badge got taken,” Simon snipes, frustration sharp in his voice, “for _saving everyone from Lilith’s disciples.”_

“My badge got taken because I was caught with a crossbow, and have been suspected or implicated in multiple murders over the past year.” Luke squeezes Simon’s shoulder.  It’s a gesture meant for comforting, but Simon’s evidently having none of it. 

“You haven’t _murdered–”_

“-They don’t know that, Simon,” Luke says firmly. 

Rebecca can tell that this is a sore spot.  Luke’s face is drawn, defeated in a way she’s never seen in him before.  Luke’s usually a positive force, radiating goodwill wherever he goes.  It’s hard for Rebecca to understand what he must be going through, but she hopes that she can do something to help.

Luke gestures toward the book-covered room.  “It was time – I had a lot of resources in the NYPD, but I was only going to be able to be a detective and part of the Downworld for so long.”

That makes sense.  Well, insofar as she understands the workings of the Downworld, which isn’t saying much.  Still, Rebecca thinks it’s better that he step away before he really got into trouble with law enforcement over something he’d never be able to explain away.

Simon huffs, clearly still heated over the whole thing.  He’s always been fiercely protective of Luke.

She doesn’t think that she has anything more that she can contribute to the conversation, so Rebecca wanders into the room that’s clearly going to be the starter bookshop.  She flips open the tabs of the first cardboard box she ends up near, and finds old, paperback philosophy texts.

Rebecca turns back toward Luke and Simon.  Luke is watching her peruse, while Simon has wandered off somewhere unseen – maybe to calm down. 

“So,” she says conversationally, picking up a well-worn copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s _Social Contract_.  The cover is bumpy and discoloured from water damage, sustained who-knows-how long ago.  “Is this a legit business venture, or is it a front for something Downworld-y?”

Luke reaches along the wall and flips up a switch.  The room becomes awash in soft, yellow lighting, revealing that the entire space is… _way_ dustier than she’d originally thought.  Luke’s definitely barely lived here – or at least barely lived in this room – for a seriously long time.

“A bit of both.”

Rebecca hums a quiet noise to indicate that she’s listening as she puts down Rousseau and picks her way through the box. Nietzsche, Descartes, Plato – _ooh,_ Judith Butler.  She pulls out _Gender Trouble_ , which is in astronomically better shape than poor _Social Contract_ had been, and runs her fingers alone the spine.  She might have to convince Luke to let her steal this one.

Luke says from the foyer, “The upper floor is already converted into its own unit.  I put in the permits to have the lower level as commercial space.”

Rebecca holds up her Judith Butler prize.  “Hey, can I take this as payment for services?”

The ex-detective, who had been looking up the stairs aligned on the median wall between this rowhouse and the next, casts barely a glance at what she’s plundered.  Obviously, Luke couldn’t care less. “Yeah, go for it, Becca.”

“Awesome.” Pleased, Becky sets the book up onto one of the empty bookcase shelves to keep it separated from whatever work they’ll be doing, tonight. “So, what kind of bookstore is this going to be?”

Luke steps into the room more fully, surveying the boxes and empty shelves.  “It’ll be a Mundane bookstore for the most part – resale of whatever interesting stuff I can find from estate and library sales –  but between my own collection and what I can bring in, I’ll have product for anyone from the Shadow World, too.”

“Not just books, I’m guessing.”

Luke’s lips quirk – his amusement is palpable, probably because what she’s saying is adorably naïve.  He must also know that she’s been avoiding learning too much about the Downworld.  Simon is such a tattle-tale. 

“No, not just books,” Luke says.

Simon materializes in the room with three not-at-all-tiny boxes and sets it all down beside one of the many piles.  The load he hauled in is so heavy that it actually brings up a cloud of dust when Simon sets/drops it to the floor. Rebecca hazards a guess that there’s no rhyme or reason to this whole thing…yet.  That’s probably where she comes in.   Simon definitely would have volunteered her for an organizational role over a physical one.  Anal-retentiveness has its uses when wanting to avoid manual labour.  Also, her left knee has been buggered since high school from a rugby near-death experience (read: normal scrum experience, but very near-death for Rebecca in hindsight).

“Speaking of the obviously supernatural,” Rebecca says, eyeing her brother as he turns tail – not without giving her a dirty look for the jab, though – and vanishes back the way he’d come.  Loose box panels flutter from the air displaced by his speed.

Her brother’s gusto for helping Luke with his new work project makes her roll her eyes.  Simon has already told her that vampires need extremely little sleep comparable to humans – as if Simon needed help being awake and buzzing with energy at all hours.  He’ll be at this for so long that Luke will definitely have to kick him out.  Simon’s always been like a bloodhound when you gave the kid a project.

Ha, _blood_ hound _._

Her attention diverts back to Luke as she’s reminded of her own excellent comedic timing.  “You could have told me that you’re a werewolf, by the way,” she says, inserting as much disappointment into her tone as she can.

Luke raises an eyebrow at her, a silent ask for where she’s going with this. 

“…I would have thrown you a bone.”

A sharp bark of laughter from the back of the house – maybe even outside in the yard – pierces the quiet.  Simon. Definitely Simon.  The super-hearing is hands-down her brother’s creepiest vampire skill, and Rebecca has made sure to remind Simon of that ever since he told her about it.

Luke and Rebecca face off with equally impressive blank expressions for a long moment, before Luke chuckles under his breath and shakes his head.  That’s Luke-speak for a full-on LOL, so she’ll take it.

When Simon reappears with some more boxes and sets these down beside the ones he’d brought a moment ago, he doesn’t disappear instantly.  Instead, he turns a big grin on his sister and asks:

“How long have you been saving that one?”

 “Pretty much since you told me that Luke’s a werewolf,” Rebecca replies, adding in a two-handed finger-gun gesture just for good measure.

“You’re so classy, Becks.”

“You know it.” She then cracks her knuckles, taking a cursory glance at the work ahead of them.  “All right, Luke.  By subject and then author?”

Simon leans across one of the book stacks.  “I think we should put all the sci fi in the front.  Y’know, so I can just be in and out.”

 _“Oh my God,_ Simon,” Rebecca groans.  “You don’t even read, anymore. You just play World of Warcraft.”

“I play _Magic_ , WoW was _so_ grade ten.” Simon corrects, returning her earlier finger-gun like the little douche he is.  “Get it together, Becks.”

Rebecca turns to Luke, hoping for a compatriot in mourning whatever cool Simon could have achieved in life.  “He’s the eternal dork.”

“ _Literally_ an eternal dork,” Simon pipes in. 

It’s probably meaningful progress that he can joke about the immortality thing in front of her, now, but she’s more focused on the fact that she’s basically just been challenged to a pun battle. 

_This means war, you little shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short entry. I have longer ones lined up, but am writing my bar exams this month, so whether chapter three will be out soon is yet undetermined. Hope this is okay to tide a reader over! 
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, and left kudos in the first chapter!


	3. Lesson 3: The Blood Thing is a Big Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon nearly dies, Rebecca gets a sharp dose of reality. TW: blood/gore.

So, they’ve kind of been here before.  Last time, she got hurt by not listening to Simon warning her about his nature.  This time, the problem is that she’s a big sister who can’t just watch her brother _bleed to death_.

It started with a fairly normal night, the two of them hitting up an indie theatre and then getting hot dogs.  Well, Rebecca had gotten a hot dog and Simon had gotten down with the weird flask of blood he’d taken to carrying around.  She understood the necessity, but that didn’t make it any less creepy that her brother carried cow blood around in a Green Lantern flask.

Simon had gotten a call from Clary.  That’s where it had all gone downhill.  Something about demons, something about Jace being hurt (Jace was Clary’s boyfriend, as long as they were in the on part of their on-and-off relationship – Rebecca was starting to keep track of these things).  Simon had asked for an address, had apologized to Rebecca, and had given her the key to his apartment before disappearing into the night to go fight monsters.

Rebecca had done the only thing she could do, given that there was a moratorium on her being anywhere in the vicinity of Downworld-related fights: she went back to Simon’s place.  She spent more time there than not, these days, often surfing her brother’s couch and annoying Jordan as much as possible.  Being around their mom, who was still grieving Simon’s death, was just…too much.  Elaine Lewis was convinced that Becky had met someone, which, given who she was actually spending time with – _ew._

Going back to Simon’s turns out not to be the best plan (this is not her fault).  Simon gets hurt wherever he’d cavorted off to.  Maia and Jordan bring Simon back to his and Jordan’s place, and Rebecca is there (not their fault, either). 

The problem is this: injured vampires can’t control their bloodlust.  They instinctively seek out what can replenish their system and speed their healing.  It doesn’t matter how moral a vampire may be – the more hurt they are, the more likely they are to hurt someone else.

Simon’s ex-girlfriend, Maia, had explained all of this to her when no one else would.  Simon was pretty dodgy about the darker parts of his vampirism, but when Rebecca had taken to visiting the Hunter’s Moon, she’d found an excellent confidante in Maia.  Maia didn’t subscribe to the idea that withholding information from Mundanes involved with Downworlders was for the better.  When explaining this over beers after work, the woman had indicated the vicious scarring on her neck – an unfortunate commonality between them – and told Rebecca that ignoring the problem was stupid.  Had she been prepared to deal with the uncontrollable rage that came with Jordan’s lycanthropy, it would have probably saved her a grievous injury and becoming a werewolf herself.  Maia had proceeded to explain everything she knew about vampirism, speaking generally and being careful not to divulge anything specific to Simon he wasn’t willing to share himself. 

This had caused a blowout fight between Maia and Simon when Simon found out.  Maia had won that fight on practicality alone, reminding Simon that Rebecca had every right to know about the world she’d become involved in, and that Simon was definitely not going to be the only vampire Rebecca would interact with.  Wasn’t it better for her to understand the Downworlders she would be around? Reluctantly, and with much huffiness, Simon had agreed.  It had appeared, at the time, that Maia usually won her fights, probably especially ones with Simon.

None of Maia's explanations prepare Rebecca for when Simon gets hurt.  Rebecca learns this when Maia and Jordan burst through the apartment door with Simon between them, an arm flung over each of their shoulders, and bleeding from somewhere in his stomach area.  Her brother’s head lolls to one side, eyes unfocused.  He looks like a broken doll.

“What happened?!” Rebecca cries, jumping up from the couch.  She fights her every instinct to go to him, instead keeping herself firmly planted where she is and letting the two werewolves handle him.  Putting Simon in the position of attacking her because he’s in a bloodlust frenzy would only make things worse for everyone.

Initially, Rebecca is ignored.  Ever the levelheaded one, Maia takes control of the situation by directing Jordan to the fridge to get whatever blood they might have on hand, before maneuvering Simon into the living room and down onto the couch.  As if she were a repelling magnet, Rebecca maintains equal distance away from Simon while Maia is moving him. 

 “Someone got in front of a Ravener Demon, trying to be a hero,” Maia explains.  Then, the adds, “like an _idiot_.”

Simon’s pretty clearly hurt, but he manages an annoyed groan of protest at Maia’s determination.  Rebecca thinks Maia is pretty great and is inclined to agree with her over Simon.  She loves her brother, but the kid’s a trouble-magnet.  Apparently to supernatural degrees, given his entire friendship with Clary (seriously – he found the _one_ girl in New York who happened to be a Shadowhunter and didn’t know it) and where that led.

“We have _one_ blood bag,” Jordan reports, rounding the couch to proffer his findings to Maia.  Both women look at the sad, solitary blood bag in disbelief. 

“One,” Rebecca parrots.  Then, she and Maia look at each other as they both recognize what this means.  She says, “I – okay.  Okay, we can deal with this.”

Jordan hands off the bag to Simon, who grapples for it with shaky, pale fingers.  He brings it to his mouth and rips the plastic open, red sloshing across his face and the front of his shirt.  The couch and carpet will most likely not survive this experience.  The moment the scent hits the air – strong enough that even Rebecca’s human nose detects the metallic tang of the blood – Simon frenzies.  He snarls viciously and tries to both suck at and eat the bag.  Maia shoves Rebecca backwards, sending the backs of her knees into the coffee table and then the rest of her overbalancing, falling right over the table.  She hits the ground hard and elbow-first. 

Maia doesn’t have time to apologize.  As Rebecca regains her bearings, she sees both Maia and Jordan struggling to keep Simon down and stopping him from snapping at them.  His eyes lock on Rebecca.  It’s like he doesn’t even know her – or doesn’t even care.

“Rebecca, get out of here!” Maia snaps through her own set of sharp teeth, although hers are large and canid, too large for her mouth.  Both she and Jordan are partially transformed, a matching set of green eyes, big fangs, and sharp claws.  Their snarling rises up to match Simon’s, which only makes him buck harder against the couch and do his best, even injured, to fight them off. 

If there are any normal neighbours at home in this building, they're going to think that someone’s started up a dog-fighting ring.  It’s actually a miracle that more people, more _Mundanes_ , don’t know about the Downworld.  No one exactly conducts themselves subtly…including the Shadowhunters and especially the demons, who probably couldn’t care less about humans knowing about them.

“Wait, wait!” Rebecca’s voice is rising above even the snarling, going high and reedy with panic, “we can’t just – he’ll heal if he feeds, right?”

“He should, but–”

“–so _._ We have to  _fix that._ "

Jordan’s head twists toward her in disbelief.  “Yeah, na’ way I’m letting that happen,” he says in a voice made guttural and harsh by his semi-wolfed-out state.  “The Praetor –”

“I don’t give a shit about your Praetor!” Rebecca snaps.  This is her brother, injured and losing his shit because neither he nor Jordan can be responsible adult Downworlders and keep a sufficient blood supply.  “What if he _dies_?”

Jordan hesitates.  He looks to Maia for answers, or back-up, or both.  The other woman just chews her lip, eyes flickering between Simon’s wound and Rebecca, who’s still half-sprawled on the other side of the coffee table.

Jordan realizes that Maia is considering Rebecca’s implication, and swears viciously under his breath.  He gets a knee up, jamming it against Simon’s stomach, just beneath the wound, and using the leverage to help hold the vampire down.  As if in complete sync with him, Maia vaults over the back of the couch to get behind Simon’s head. 

“Fuck,” Maia snarls under her breath, “we shouldn’t have let him feed first.”

This is a pretty apt observation, because Simon had been woozy but still with his higher faculties when they’d first arrived.  It was only after he’d ripped into the blood bag that his vampire-ness had sent him into instinctual overdrive, shark-like in his frenzy. 

“Simon, listen,” Maia then says, taking either side of his face in her hands.  Simon, whose lips have been pulled back into a vicious baring of fangs, pauses and cocks his head. Maia’s direct address and gentler physical contact have struck some kind of chord to those ‘higher faculties.’ It’s kind of cute, how his ex-girlfriend’s touch pulls him back like that.

He doesn’t stop struggling against Jordan, though.  Being pinned is the last thing any injured creature wants and Simon’s no exception.  However, his snarl does diminish and…something about his face seems to indicate he’s paying attention to what Maia’s about to say.

“Simon, your sister is about to do something really stupid and I’m going to let her,” Maia says, fingers caressing Simon’s cheek.  It makes him close his eyes, brow furrowing as he tries to overcome his instinct to understand what she’s implying.

Rebecca figures that this is probably as good a time as any to heave herself up off the floor.  Three supernatural beings immediately snap to attention.  They definitely don’t realize how completely creepy that is.

Slowly, like she’s approaching a startled deer, Rebecca lowers herself gently onto the couch.  Simon, realizing what both she and Maia are hinting, immediately releases a high-pitched whine and tries to scramble to the opposite end of the couch.  The sudden effort sideways instead of trying to push straight through the werewolf on top of him almost throws Jordan for a loop.  He swears and leans down with an elbow to Simon’s chest.  He’s still doing his best to frame the wound without sticking an arm or a knee right into it and making things even worse.

 _Me being here is making this worse, period,_ Rebecca thinks.  If she hadn’t been here, either Maia or Jordan would have been able to go find blood while one of them kept Simon together.  It was her presence, her human blood, that had been the aggravating factor in all this.

 _Stop it,_ she chastises herself.  _You can’t change it, so don’t dwell on it.  Move forward toward a solution._

She ignores that the familiar words come out in a very familiar voice.  Thinking about her mom was kind of brutal, these days.  She has to focus on her brother, right now.

Maia tightens her hold on Simon’s face, keeping his head in place while Jordan gets better leverage to immobilize Simon’s body.  Rebecca scoots closer to them on the couch, drawing her legs up so that she can sit on her knees.  She lets one arm hang across the back of the couch, fingers brushing against Maia’s wrist so that she could physically tap out of she couldn’t say so.

“You tell me the moment that you feel weird, or dizzy, or anything,” Maia says.  Her words come out clearer, her transformation having receded only to glowing, green eyes.  Her teeth are blunted, human.  Somehow, this doesn’t make her any less intimidating.

“I promise,” Rebecca assures the other woman.  Maia nods, satisfied with this.

“ _Don’t,_ ” Simon hisses, but it’s more like pleading than it is a warning.  When Rebecca leans forward and offers an arm, letting it hover just under his chin, he releases another heartbreaking whining sound.

“Simon,” Rebecca says firmly.  “You’re hurt.  You have to feed.  We’ll make sure it doesn’t go too far.”

He opens his eyes.  The two of them stare at each other for a long moment, punctuated only by everyone’s nervous, ragged breathing.  Simon’s eyes accuse her, seeming to say: _you know I don’t want this._

 _No,_ Rebecca agrees silently, _but you need this._

Simon’s hands stop grappling with Jordan’s clothes, instead coming up to hold Rebecca’s arm.  It’s a gentle grip, nothing like the first time that he bit her.  She hopes this is the last time, but knows that if he ever gets hurt again, she wouldn’t hesitate to offer help any way she could, including letting him feed.  He’s her little brother; she’d do anything for him.

Rebecca feels more than she sees Simon’s mouth come down toward her forearm.  The anticipation is almost painful.  His breath ghosts over the skin, like he’s giving her one last chance to escape.

 _Please let this not be too much,_ she pleads to someone, or no one.  There’s a chance, there’s always a chance, that this is the last straw for Simon and he disappears forever to protect her and their mom.  It’s something that they’ve never talked about with each other, but that Rebecca knows, and that she knows Simon knows, is always a (terrible) option if he felt the need to take his family’s safety into his own hands. 

Rebecca lets her eyes flutter closed.  Simon’s grip suddenly goes tight, almost too tight.  There’s a moment of sharp pain as Simon’s fangs break the skin.  Then comes the floating sensation.  This, Rebecca remembers from the first time.  It’s overwhelming warmth and love, the notion that _of course she’d do this for Simon, she loves him more than anything_.  Rebecca thinks that she could spend forever happily inside this feeling. 

It feels like both forever and an instant in time before Simon’s head wrenches away.  Everything goes cold, especially her arm, and the stinging of the bite wound becomes the foremost sensation.  Rebecca sways and leans into the back cushions of the couch.

Simon must have pulled himself away, because he’s propelled himself backward into the far end of the couch, covering his face with his arms and his knees pulled up like a barrier between himself and everyone else.  Maia’s arms have been caught in the panic of Simon’s initial escape, but she rolls with it, doing her best to embrace him from behind and prove some form of comfort.

“Hey,” Maia soothes in a low voice, “you did great.  Everyone’s fine.”

As she watches this, a hand gently guides Rebecca’s arm away from where she’s just left it hanging in the empty space where Simon had been.  Cloth is wrapped around the wet wound on her arm, and she blinks blearily over to where Jordan is leaning, shirtless, in front of her.  Why is he shirtless?

She looks down at her arm.  Oh.  He’s used his shirt to wrap the bite.

“Oh my God,” Rebecca whines in a slurred voice, because she can’t help herself, “why would you do that, that’s so unsanitary.”

Jordan looks offended for a moment, but then looks to Maia.  She’s been the commanding force through this whole thing, and apparently Jordan is still ready to take orders.

“I’ll…get the first aid kit?” Jordan asks.

“You do that,” Maia says dryly, still trying to extricate Simon from the way he’s balled himself up on the couch. 

Jordan beats a hasty retreat in the direction of the bedrooms.  Maia finally gets Simon to uncurl, leaning over the couch to hug him from behind in comfort. 

“You’re fine,” she says to him, “Simon, you’re fine.”

The werewolf circles the couch as best as she can while extricating herself from his grip.  Simon lets Maia draw his hands down and away from his face.  The entire lower half of his face is slicked with blood – Rebecca’s blood – and his eyes are blown wide and wild with having fed.  Maia doesn’t give him a moment before she wrenches one of his arms out of her field of vision so that she can examine his wound.

“It’s all healed,” she says, letting go of his arm and instead patting his cheek gently.  She doesn’t even react to the fact that he’s literally covered in his sister’s blood, or that his fangs are still exposed and gleaming bone-white in the darkened apartment. 

Simon clears his throat and ducks his head, rubbing his shirtsleeve, already covered in his own blood from his injury, and tries to scrub Becky’s blood from his face.  Rebecca’s fingers close tighter around the shirt covering her wound.  She leans forward. 

“Simon,” Rebecca says softly, but is careful not to touch him quite yet, “everything’s okay.”

His expression is dark, brows drawn downward to crease his forehead.  Finally, he raises his eyes to hers.  Furious.  He’s furious.

“It almost wasn’t,” he mumbles into his sleeve.  Maia releases his shoulder and steps away, playacting at finding something to do in the direction of the kitchen to allow the two siblings a moment to breathe.  Still, she doesn’t leave the room, clearly not prepared to give them complete privacy.

Rebecca almost doesn’t hear her brother’s words; his voice is so quiet.  “We can’t…dwell on what might be, Simon.  It _was_ okay.”

This is the complete wrong thing to say.  Simon lurches to his feet in anger, the couch actually shoved inches away in the aggression and strength with which he leaps upward.

“You don’t understand, Rebecca!” Simon shouts.  He’s probably the angriest she’s ever seen him at her.  “You can’t _possibly_ understand what this is _like_! You think it’s easy to stop? I _wanted_ to _kill_ you! Do you know how that _fucking feels_?”

She flushes red, her own anger rising up. “No! Of course I don’t!" She's shouting too, now. "I can’t! But I also can’t let you just bleed out and die right in –”

“I’m already dead, Becky!” Simon snarls, and the complete shock on her face must take the wind out of his sails, because he deflates a moment later.  The anger is subverted by a quiet, simmering pain, and her scrubs at his eyes with the back of a hand.  “I’m already dead.  And I can’t…I won’t put you at risk over that.”

This is the moment where Maia must decide that enough is enough, because the young woman steps forward with a sharp clap of her hands.  Both the siblings’ heads snap toward her.  Having successfully drawn attention, Maia points at Simon.  “You, sit.” Then, she beckons at Rebecca.  “You, come with me.”

Simon and Rebecca both hesitate, but with a pointed clearing of her throat, Simon immediately drops onto the couch.  He still looks furious, but he also looks like a man who knows not to mess with the woman in front of him.  Rebecca takes a page from his book and gets shakily to her own feet, following Maia as the woman turns her back and heads toward the door of the apartment. 

Jordan takes this moment to come out of his bedroom with a small, white box.  He carefully makes no eye contact with anyone, having definitely heard what’s just happened.  He proffers the box out to Maia, who takes it with one hand as she opens the front door with the other.

“Come with me,” Maia says.

Rebecca follows, no questions asked.

* * *

They end up down the street from the apartment, on a bench in a little park.  They’re just hidden enough that Maia can deal with Rebecca’s bite wound without drawing pedestrian attention, but still public in a way that brings some comfort, given how late at night it is.

Maia helped Rebecca all the way to the bench with a strong, guiding arm.  Rebecca thanks her with basically every one of those steps, but both of them are quiet and subdued in the wake of Simon’s outburst.  Rebecca turns over her feelings, struggling with how to process all of what she wants to say and where she knows she has to concede Simon’s point. 

Maia gently peels back Jordan’s shirt and drops it into the dirt.  She’s set up a proverbial clinic across both women’s legs.  First, she reaches for the small bottle of Bactine and begins gently cleaning the injury.  The wound is only just beginning to hurt as the last vestiges of Simon’s venom drain from her system.  She winces as Maia runs a sterile gauze pad along the edges of the injury.  Rebecca will be _so_ glad when this part is over.

“Simon is right, you know.”

Rebecca’s head snaps up.  Maia remains focused downward on her work, doesn’t even look up to meet Rebecca’s gaze.  Maia has demonstrated every time that Rebecca’s met her, including tonight, that she’s not someone who says things lightly.  She seems the type of person who only speaks what she sees as the truth, and won’t mince words to save feelings or beat around the bush.  Rebecca respects this, generally speaking.  She doesn’t necessarily appreciate it now, when there’s more stinging than just her arm.

“He’s not totally,” Rebecca insists in a low, stubborn voice.  “And you _helped_ , Maia.”

Maia sighs.  She sets down the bloodied gauze pad and rips open a package of new, sterile squares.  Using medical tape, she secures them against Rebecca’s arm.  Thankfully, the squares are just the right size for vampire bites – absently, Becky wonders if this is deliberate.  Supernatural-geared first aid kits were probably a thing, right? Maia takes a fresh roll of gauze and wraps the injury with the appropriate level of tightness, her touch practised and gentle. 

Maia says, apropos of Rebecca’s wound, “Simon’s venom will help with coagulation.  You’re barely bleeding anymore, so I don’t think you need stitches.”

Rebecca says nothing in response or acknowledgment, merely nods numbly along with Maia’s observation. 

It’s cold, tonight.  _That might be the blood-loss,_ a voice in the back of her head reminds her.  She thinks her inner voice needs to shut the hell up, because it isn’t helping anything.  Rebecca doesn’t want to think about the consequences of her decision, she just wants to stew in the fact that Simon’s being stubborn and ridiculous, and that were their situations reversed, he would have done the same damn thing.

“I did help,” Maia says after a beat.  Rebecca’s surprised gaze is met with Maia’s own steady one.  Maia always seems confident in her words.  Rebecca wonders what that must be like.  “Thing is, just because we made the right decision tonight doesn’t make what Simon said wrong.  He was right, too.”

Later, when she’s had time to process away from the shock and emotion of the entire situation, Rebecca is sure that she’ll agree.  Her ego is smarting, though.  It’s also hard to admit to any wrongness when she’s probably just helped save her brother’s life.  Maia and Jordan had been acting like the situation was dire, and even though she doesn’t know Jordan well, she does figure that she can confidently peg that Maia isn’t the type to overdramatize.

Maia seems to be considering a thought.  As she does this, she finishes fastening the edge of the gauze to keep her work from unwrapping itself. 

“Becoming a Downworlder is kind of crazy,” Maia says.  She picks at a tear in the knee of her jeans as she says this, appearing the most uncomfortable and unsure that Rebecca’s ever seen her.  “It can’t really _be_ explained to someone.  It’s a lot like losing yourself, especially in the beginning.”

“Maia, I never tried to suggest that I understood –”

Maia holds up a silencing hand.  “Wait.  Let me finish,” she says.  “For Simon especially, this is still really new.  I have a couple years on Simon, and I can barely keep it together, sometimes.  I’ve hurt people because I lost control.  Simon’s at an even higher risk of that, given that he’s been a vampire for months, not even years.  He’s…so new to this…”  Maia stops her own train of thought and instead looks away from Rebecca and outward to the street.  Her gaze follows a couple pedestrians as they cross the road away from the park. 

Rebecca realizes in this moment that she’s underestimated Maia’s depths.  She’d known that Maia had been through indescribable traumas, knew that Maia had a history and a life that she’d had to completely uproot when she’d been Bitten.  Still, Rebecca’s interactions with Maia thus far had painted her as this…immovable force.  She’d seemed like a rock, planted firm and telling the world to move around her, instead.

 _‘No, you move,’_ Rebecca thinks, the Captain America quote appearing in her head unbidden.  God, Simon had quoted that all throughout high school, touting it like a personal anthem.

“I never meant to suggest it was easy to be a Downworlder,” Rebecca mumbles.  She means it – she knows better than that, has seen the way that Shadowhunters treat them as little better than animals.  She’s seen how hard it can be to fight the demon disease that creates vampirism and lycanthropy.  She doesn’t understand, can’t ever truly, but she gets it enough to know that it’s brutal.

Maia’s expression has softened, and the woman leans forward to set a comforting hand on the outside of Rebecca’s thigh.  “I know.  And Simon knows that, too. He’ll realize in a day or two that there wasn’t a better option.  The circumstances weren’t exactly _ideal_.”

“I just…” Rebecca’s voice hitches, halting her words with the force of the emotion.  Tears begin to slip down her cheeks, and she mirrors her brother’s gesture from earlier by trying to wipe them away with the back of a hand.  “I lost him once, you know? I lost him, he died, and I didn’t even know.  I literally went about my day, and he was _dead_.  But now? If I can help? If I can _be there_?”

Maia gives Rebecca’s leg a soft squeeze.  “There isn’t an easy answer.  Seriously.  Give him a bit of space tonight, but then _talk to him_.”

With that said, Maia eases up from the bench.  She brushes the backs of her pant legs and offers a hand to Rebecca. 

“I need to get back and do damage control.  Let’s get you home,” Maia says.  Her smile is a flash of white teeth in the darkness of the park.  Momentarily, Rebecca is reminded that those teeth come in a much, much bigger and sharper alternative. “I’ll walk you until we get you in a cab.”

Rebecca accepts the help, allowing Maia a moment to dump the supplies back into the box and then roll up the used gauze in Jordan’s ruined shirt before putting that under her arm.  Rebecca decides that she likes Maia, that this is a person who Simon is lucky to have in his life, and by extension, Rebecca is lucky, too.

“Thanks, Maia.” Rebecca says then.  “Really.  Thank you.”

Maia’s responding smile is bright.  Beautiful.  This time, Rebecca isn’t reminded even for a moment about sharp teeth.  It’s just…warmth.  Warmth, and gratitude, and the blossoming of something deep in her chest that Rebecca knows, even now, that she’ll cherish.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I graduated law school! I'll hopefully be able to churn these out at a better pace, now. Thank you to everyone for reading, reviewing, and being so incredibly patient!

**Author's Note:**

> Rebecca Lewis needed some fanfiction attention. Like, badly. - MI


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